


my brother’s child

by theformerone



Series: the ballad of the slug sage [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Non-Binary Character, Gen, Kurama centric, Slug Sage Sakura, in this house we play fast and loose with gender pronouns for beings made of chakra, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Kurama knows what Sakura has become before Naruto does.





	my brother’s child

She feels it from deep within Naruto, deep within Fire Country but far away from Konoha. Feels a whisper of something cool and quiet and soft brush against her mind. 

Kurama hasn't visited her siblings in a very long time. When they call her, in their collective consciousness, she ignores them. She is angry, angrier than all of them, and she has every right to be. She doesn't understand why they aren't more like Son, distrusting of humans and wary of those who attempt kindness. She thinks Gyūki is a fool for sharing his name with his newest host, and for sharing his power, too. 

Kurama has never liked the Uzumaki. Mito was a clever thing, to trap him inside of her. And Kushina had been filled with regret and hesitation when she took Kurama into her body. Naruto was a baby; he hadn't had a choice. More than anything, Kurama hates the Uzumaki for sealing her inside of a child. 

A long time ago, Kurama had kits. She had given birth to seventy-seven children, all kitsunes, all trickster spirits who loved her and fawned over her. Even now, she missed them. She doubted they remembered her name any more. 

She is a mother and a father; Kurama is a parent, and she would never do to her children what the Uzumaki have done to Naruto. 

So it isn't her fault that she hates him. She hates what these idiotic villages have done to him. She keeps her power to herself because she doesn't want to spoil this stupid, fleshy container with it. She demands to be released because she doesn't want to eat away at Naruto's fragile but expansive chakra coils until he finally keels over from chakra exhaustion at age forty-five. 

Her wants are vicious and conflicting, but so is Kurama. She always has been, and she always will be. 

But they are interrupted when on that day, Saiken but not Saiken pushes insistently at her mind, desperate to see the whole world. Kurama remembers Onyomi, the little twin her younger sibling made for themselves when they got lonely. He presses insistently against Kurama, trying to see through her eyes. She stomps down on the slug's impulse, but Onyomi is not the only one pushing. 

There is a smaller, green flicker of intent laden chakra. It surprises Kurama so much she lets it have what it wants, and in return, she peers back into it. 

A girl. A child. A kit. One of Naruto's littermates. Had a ridiculous name, if Kurama recalls. Sakura. Haruno Sakura. 

Kurama drums her large claws against the damp floor of her seal in Naruto's mind. 

"Really?" she asks. 

Saiken is there, peering down at the girl just beside her. 

"She shows great promise," Saiken replies. 

Kurama rolls her eyes. 

"She's human." 

Saiken gives her a look; as if being human is an answer for Sakura's fallibility. Kurama stares at the girl as she dances in Onyomi's slime, watches as she creates senjutsu chakra and folds it into the darkest corners of her own body. 

"She'll break under the weight of her promise," Kurama says, narrowing her eyes. 

Saiken blows a bubble at her that gets caught in Kurama's fur like a burr. She lashes at it with one of her tails, but it escapes her wrath by floating innocently up into the air. 

"Perhaps," Saiken says. "But I do not think that she will."

"Oh?"

Saiken smiles. 

"She loves your boy," Saiken says. "He is like a brother to her. And you know very well what we do for family, Ku-chan."

Three of Kurama's tails lash out at Saiken, but the slug wiggles out of the way, laughing at her. 

"It's been a long time since we were a family," Kurama bites. "And fat load of good being a family did us. You made yourself a damn twin, you got so lonely. Then we all got captured."

Haruno Sakura continues to dance. Saiken sidles back up next to Kurama; the fox convinces herself that it's annoyance, not affection that lets her little sibling press their wet fat body into her side. She smells like springtime. Kurama has only smelled the damp wet floor for a very long time.

When she was free, the world had been wild and beautiful, all around her. Everything had been so beautiful. She had wanted to run, but they would not let her go. They would not leave her _be._ Kurama was an angry creature, but she wanted peace. She wanted to see her children. 

Instead, she was sealed inside of a newborn. She killed them for doing that to her.

"She's going to let us out," Saiken says, "but she's going to need help."

Kurama huffs.

"Like I can do anything from inside this brat," she mutters.

Saiken shrugs a shoulder.

"When the time comes, you'll know what to do," she says. "It could be as simple as waking him up, or nudging him in the right direction. Maybe even asking him a question, and answering the questions that he asks."

Haruno Sakura's skin absorbs Onyomi's slime. Uzumaki Naruto sleeps, a blue popsicle melting in his fist. He's exhausted from training. Kurama ignores the fondness she feels for him, and tries to dredge up malice instead. Her weakness for children was what got her stuck in Uzumaki Mito in the first place.

"She will need his help, and yours, Ku-chan," Saiken says.  

Kurama stands and arches her back. It cracks loudly, beautifully, and it makes Saiken move so she can stand. 

"She's one of us now," Saiken murmurs. 

"The hell she is," Kurama bites.

Saiken looks at her, dark eyes narrowing at her older sister. Saiken had always been soft, but then again, in the beginning they all were. But Saiken's one of the few of them to stay that way. Even Gyūki had been cruel for a time. Kokuō as well. But Saiken had retained something like kindness. 

Kurama hated her for it. 

"She  _belongs_ to us now," Saiken says, voice hard. "And whether you like it or not, she's coming to help you and your boy."

Uzumaki Naruto snores in his sleep. He has destroyed several trees with his Rasengan. He is getting stronger by the day. Haruno Sakura dances for more than a month. Her hair grows long, and her veins are a strange, soft purple from the chakra she has stored there. 

"Help her," Saiken urges. "Help her and let her help you."

Kurama turns, and walks away. Saiken stays there, behind, and goes back to her own boy, Utakata, to tell him the good news. Kurama wonders if she is the only one to have been blessed with this little visitation. If not, she hopes Saiken enjoys the yelling Son will unleash upon her. And the eerie silence that comes whenever any of them try to talk to Isobu.

Saiken and Onyomi were the few to ever sustained long term mutually beneficial relationships to humans, ones where humans remembered who gave them their power, and revered them for it. The same couldn't be said for the rest of them. No kage had ever tried signing a contract with the kitsune. There were no monkey sages. 

But here were two of Kurama's little siblings, still believing that humans could be trusted, could be changed, could be  _taught._ Kurama had stopped believing humans had the capacity for anything other than destruction when she was sealed inside of Naruto. She had thought Kushina would have been different, that Minato might have been different, but she was wrong. Woefully wrong. 

Despite Mito's advice, the encouragement to love, Kurama had still been held down with chains, had been torn again and again out of the world she was born to be a part of, denied her rights, and kept imprisoned in the minds of those who were lucky by circumstance that her immense form did not destroy them when she was forced inside of them. 

Kurama did not believe that human beings could learn, or love, or change. Not for creatures like her. Not for the betterment of the world around them. But they would change the world with their own two hands for each other. And despite her rage, despite her imposed isolation, Kurama knew that if it came down to it, she would do anything for her own as well. 

So Kurama walks on, ignoring Saiken behind her, ignoring the pull of her other siblings. They had heard her conversation in whispers, had felt Kurama's momentary presence in their shared mind. They wanted to see her. But she does not want to see them. Kurama presses forward, crosses the mental distance back to Naruto. She curls up behind the bars, her fur wet with the cold water, places her chin upon her paws, and she waits. 

Soon Naruto will wake, and she will be there, clawing at him, begging to be released. Sakura will wake soon as well, with her terrible new mission and Kurama - Kurama will be there. 

If not for her boy and his littermate, then for her own.


End file.
